Hollywood turns good story into craps with '21'

Wednesday

Mar 26, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 26, 2008 at 12:43 AM

Hollywood has never let a good story get in the way of a mediocre movie. But it deals a particularly bad hand to the less-than-crackerjack blackjack saga “21.” Culled from Ben Mezrich’s best-seller, “Bringing Down the House,” “21” takes a can’t-miss tale about a group of MIT eggheads scoring millions counting cards in Vegas and turns it into craps.

Al Alexander

Hollywood has never let a good story get in the way of a mediocre movie. But it deals a particularly bad hand to the less-than-crackerjack blackjack saga “21.”

Culled from Ben Mezrich’s best-seller, “Bringing Down the House,” “21” takes a can’t-miss tale about a group of MIT eggheads scoring millions counting cards in Vegas and turns it into craps.

Everything that made Mezrich’s richly detailed book fascinating — the combination of brains and intrigue — has been excised by Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb, two writers who don’t boast much of a resume: “Things We Lost in the Fire,” “Be Cool” and “Analyze That.”

And it doesn’t help when you match them with the director (Robert Luketic) who’s responsible for “Monster-In-Law” and “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.”

“21,” which relies far too much on faux hipness and excessive product placement, features not-ready-for-prime-time actors such as Jim Sturgess and Cohasset’s Kate Bosworth (cast as a budding rocket scientist, no less). They’re likely here because the rest of young Hollywood smartly passed. Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne are too good for this material. They’re probably thrilled that their roles as lifelong rivals are little more than cameos.

The weight of the movie unfortunately falls on Sturgess, a bland young Brit whose only previous job was as a sort of mod Forrest Gump in Julie Taymor’s blah Beatles ode “Across the Universe.” He plays Ben Campbell, the fictionalized version of the book’s Jeff Ma, a shy, poor math genius who needs big cash fast to finance his post-graduate studies at Harvard Medical School.

Without a hint of gravitas, Sturgess bores as the ciphering cipher whose idea of excitement is hanging with his two hopelessly nerdy pals and selling clothes at J. Press in Harvard Square. Oh, yeah, and visiting his sainted mother and earning his 50th merit badge.

Just kidding about the merit badges, but they may as well have thrown that in given how Luketic goes out of his way to establish that Ben is a good person; and in so doing, stretching an already overly long movie past the two-hour mark.

Luketic wastes more time on Ben, as he grapples over whether or not he should accept an invitation to join the clandestine blackjack club run by his statistics professor Micky (Spacey).

But the money’s irresistible, and so is Jill (Bosworth), the impossibly gorgeous team member for whom he’s been secretly pining. What luck!

Luck, ironically, is not what “21” is about. It’s about a skill; one that could be very lucrative to a guy like Ben who has a super-computer brain that can keep track of what cards will be played when. It also helps that blackjack is the one game in which the house can be consistently beat — if you know what you’re doing.

In theory and practicum, the five-person ruse the kids run is mesmerizing, as proven in the book. Watching it played out on screen, however, by a quintet of made-for-MTV poseurs is quite another matter.

Call it cheesy escapism with a side of wish fulfillment, as Micky and his young charges get to play dress up while raking in thousands and thousands of dollars trying to stay one step ahead of Fishburne’s head of casino security.

Although card counting isn’t illegal, it’s understandably frowned upon by the powers-that-be in Vegas. But I highly doubt they beat and torture the people they catch, as is the case with Fishburne’s Cole, a man Dick Chaney could love.

And that’s not even the most egregious implausibility to surface over the course of a film.

The only interesting flourish is the way director of photography Russell Carpenter contrasts the quaintness of Boston and the glitz of Vegas. But I’m sure Bostonians will be perplexed as Bosworth’s character goes from Charlestown to Quincy Center on the Red Line. I had similar logistical problems with a scene in which the gang walks through the doors of the Flamingo but find themselves inside Planet Hollywood.

Also, if the guys and girls are so prolific at the art of statistics and chance, why do they play the same casino, the Hard Rock, weekend after weekend, often with the same dealer? Wouldn’t that increase their chances of being caught?

Of course trying to make sense of “21” is like trying to beat the house. You just can’t win.